Perception
by CompYES
Summary: Time travel had happened to her. She'd thought she'd just been some sort of ghost, but it turned out that she was actually a time traveling ghost. How was this her afterlife?
1. The Girl

**Chapter One: The Girl**

* * *

Her story had always been a bit complicated and she would be the first to say that she had always sucked at uncomplicating it. She would start somewhere in the middle with an explosion and keep going, and then be interrupted by people asking _why? who? how?_ Or might fixate on really pointless parts, like how she got really good at charades. Or touching people without their permission.

Knowing how wrong she could tell it came from experience. People have always told her that she should mention before she even started that the story involved time travel, and war, and superheroes, and assassins and spies.

Oh, and not to forget about gods, aliens, glowing cubes, and airships, either.

So her story was about all of that stuff.

But before she could even get to all of that, she's been told it was always best to start from the beginning.

Which actually did have explosions in it, now that she thought about it.

She was a college student, that much she remembered. That was another reason why telling her story was kind of tough. She had these, memory gaps. A hundred years could do that to a person.

Yeah, yeah, ahead of herself again.

She was a college student, and she was pretty sure that was why she was in New York when it happened. There was nothing noteworthy or memorable about the day everything changed for her at the start. It wasn't until, like she mentioned earlier, frickin' explosions disrupted everything that things got noteworthy and memorable about that day.

Some kind of creature, an alien whose species someone much, much later told her was Chitauri, grabbed her, hauled her onto its crazy flying device, and then took off. The creature had flown high, circling the large building that was spitting a beam of light into the sky. At the time, she had been screaming herself hoarse, clinging frantically to her hijab so it would not fly off in the raging wind. Out of nowhere, the opposite of salvation came in the form of an arrow - an honest to goodness arrow - flying right at them.

And, of course, another damn explosion followed that brought the pain.

Of all of the things to not forget, she could never forget that, the pain. That and the flash of blue light. She had only had enough time to feel herself thrown and fall, and then she was gone.

At least, that was what she was sure had happened, after examining and re-examining it. That the arrow had killed the creature and her along with it. And as quick as it had been, death had hurt as much as it could in the second it took her to die.

* * *

After that, though, she'd woken up. Which was confusing because even before examining and re-examining it, she'd already been sure about being dead. Dead is dead. Waking up implied somehow, a person was alive-ish. And that wasn't right either.

Whatever she was, she was confused, and had ended up in a church somewhere where it seemed no one understood English.

Though whether they understood English didn't really matter because they couldn't hear her.

Or see her.

Or touch her.

All of that was evidenced when a man walked right through her without batting an eyelash, even as she cried and begged him for help.

* * *

Years, long years, passed.

She had lingered a while in that church, in that village she discovered was named Tønsberg. Unheard, unseen, unfelt.

And after a while, when the confusion and fear faded, she decided to see the world outside of that church, maybe try and find some answers. It had certainly come as a surprise when she passed through more modern cities, countries, and found them… not so modern.

So, time travel. Time travel had happened to her. She'd thought she'd just been some sort of ghost, but it turned out that she was also a time traveling ghost.

How was this her afterlife?

It was easy, for someone who no longer felt hunger or exhaustion, to travel long and far. She saw much of Europe and Asia and had made it a point to go to Iran at least once, just to see it like she had always promised baba she would one day. However, she didn't stay long, even though she wanted to do just that. War came and Iran, like other countries, found itself swept up into the conflict. She couldn't bare to watch it, and so she looked for a new place. West was the direction she chose, and when Britain failed to be far enough away, she followed a ship across the Atlantic to America, to New York.

More precisely, to home.

Maybe she'd been avoiding it at first, afraid of what she would see. It wasn't quite her New York yet, but enough to feel familiar, something she had been missing. She would greet Lady Liberty every morning like an old friend. Cross the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset. Some days, she'd try to pass by all the other big places that made it to the 21st century. And other days, she'd pass by the places that would one day be the ones she remembered.

More years passed that way. It surprised her, how little she felt the need to wander once more. Every now and then she'd consider seeing the West Coast, traipsing up to Canada, maybe a jaunt down to South America, but it was comfortable where she was. She may have been alone, but at least she had her landmarks, her routine, to keep her sane.

And it stayed comfortable, until the second most noteworthy and memorable day of her life happened.

There were no explosions, or aliens, or thrice-damned arrows.

Just a boy.

A skinny little thing, eyes glued to the pavement and laboring for breath as bumped into her. _Bumped into her. _Not _walked through _her.

He hadn't even looked up when it happened, hadn't even realized how he changed her world with just a little bit of unexpected physical contact. All he had done was mumbled a soft, breathy, "sorry" as he weaved around her and continued on his way.

"Wait," she whispered, unused to speaking for any other reason than to mutter to herself.

And then she ran after him.

* * *

**Next**

**Chapter Two: The Boy**

* * *

**AN:** It's official, I don't know what I'm doing with my life anymore, and I have more SIs and OCs than I can shake a stick at. But whatever. It's fun.

Also, full disclosure at the gate: Not sure if anyone picked up on it, but the OC of this story? She's Iranian American. And I'll admit, I am not. I just want her to be Iranian American, okay? Most SIs and OCs I write are cool Women of Color, because there should always be more cool Women of Color in everything. If I get any tidbits of Iranian culture wrong, let me know in the future so I can fix them. Be warned, this fic will probably come with sporadic updates.

Question: Does anyone know the specific ages Steve and Bucky were at when they first met?


	2. The Boy

**Chapter Two: The Boy**

* * *

She didn't know if there were supposed to be any rules to being a ghost. Of course, she'd made assumptions, well founded ones in her opinion. If, on a regular basis for say, ten - less? more? - years, people walked through you, never made eye contact, and ignored everything you said, that was what it meant to be a ghost. It could be interesting, finding ways to not let that get to her. Making faces at people or screaming obscenities or obnoxious songs into their ears cycled in and out of being funny. People walking through her never did.

And then there had been someone who bumped into her instead of phasing through like everyone else.

That was when she started actively stalking a little boy.

If her baba - and especially if her maman - only knew what her life, or not-life, had come to. She shuddered to think it. Maman might have flipped a bit that her daughter might be a creepy pedophile. Which she wasn't. Totally not a pedophile, ever in all her nineteen years, plus all of the ghost ones.

There were actually reasons for what she did. Really good reasons, that were completely justifiable, if anyone would give her the time to explain. Which they wouldn't, unless they were baba. And he'd still probably have laughed at her like he always had.

She followed around said little boy because the kid was a disaster on two skinny, clumsy legs.

With him, around every corner lurked peril.

A crack in the pavement to trip on, something Steve was prone to do because he didn't see them coming.

Or a person with slightly more mass bumping him into a wall or into the street. God forbid he did end up in the street, he would barely hear the car before it hit him.

A dog or a cat even could be prowling about. Pet dander was the worst on his asthma. Pollen was utterly unavoidable, but dogs and cats were completely avoidable... except Steve loved those beasts and no matter how many times he was warned, he would pet them and trigger an attack.

Unfortunately, his asthma and other internal problems couldn't be helped by her timely catches, helpful nudges, or circles soothingly rubbed into his back and chest. That was why Sarah Rogers was a blessing and a half. A ghost couldn't be expected to be a very good nurse maid, now could she? Especially a twenty-first century ghost that had barely a concept of medicine in her own time, let alone in the early twentieth century.

Really, the first time she'd witnessed Sarah making Steve drink a glass of raw liver mixed with orange juice for one of his treatments, she would have thrown up if there had been anything to turn over in her stomach.

As it was, she still had to wretch a little in sympathy.

Little Steve took it like a champ until someone began producing liver extract. As a nurse, and especially a nurse in one of the nice hospitals in New York, Sarah had the insider information on medical innovations like that. And Steve had lit up like Christmas had come the day she had offered the extract instead of the usual stuff.

Such were the days in the life of Steve and Sarah Rogers.

And their strange ghostly stalker.

It was almost perfect, in that strange way normal things plus ghosts were.

Except.

Except for the part where, while Steve could certainly _feel _her, she could certainly _touch _him - _praise be, at least she could do something _\- he still couldn't see or hear her.

The elation of the first day, of the first week, of being able to touch him bled into excruciating weeks of disbelief and disappointment at how limited only having touch was. She had tried once, to bring attention to herself by tugging at his hand, tapping his shoulder, ruffling his hair. It had only scared him, sent him to Sarah, asking if something was wrong with him. The moment she heard the woman start alluding to mental illness in her conversations with his doctor, she knew she had to back off. That wasn't something a person should do to a kid.

He had enough problems on his plate without a ghost playing deranged imaginary friend on him.

So for the better part of her early acquaintance with the Rogers family, she flitted in and out of their lives. But always, when she was around, she shadowed Steve. She watched as he grew, forever a waif, but a little taller every time she was gone for a long stretch.

The disappointment at not being able to communicate with him never quite went away. If she had been able to say something, it would have either been to scold him for getting into fights so often or tell him to keep his thumb on the outside of his fists when he tried to punch. He was so scrappy, but he was much better at getting hit than hitting back.

Steve getting into fights at least gave her a new way of keeping the boy from getting himself killed. It was a lot of what she already did for him; not let him fall, keep him from getting bumped or hit, and help soothe his aches and pains after. He was always too distracted during fights to realize that maybe he shouldn't have been able to dodge something like he had. Or too asleep to notice her practicing the art of magic fingers she was learning from watching Sarah give him massages.

She also practiced the art of ignoring the voice in the back of her head that chanted _creepy, creepy, creepy._

If he woke up a little less sore in the morning, ends justified the means.

* * *

Today was one of those days when she had to heave another unheard sigh as she trailed along after him into an alley in Hell's Kitchen. This was the alley where a pack of older boys liked to pretend they were highwaymen, demanding payment for the right to walk through that dank, dirty space. Steve knew that, but Steve was also a stubborn little idiot who refused to let bullies dictate where and how walked from one place to another. So he always stood up to them.

His efforts got him a sock in the jaw that even she couldn't keep him from taking.

"For the last time, runt… you Eighth Avenue punks wanna cross Tenth, you gotta pay a toll. Two bits for two ways," (1) the lead bully in the page boy hat sneered.

"Not... giving you… a red cent…" Steve shuddered out as he braced himself against one brick wall of the alley, coughing jaggedly a moment after.

"Look at this runt! Too dumb to know he's beat! S'alright! I can spend all day provin' it to him if I have to," Hat Boy crowed to his two mean faced lackeys, starting in on Steve again in earnest, "Not like I got anything else better to do."

"I'll say," another voice cut in.

While everyone had been focusing on Steve getting wailed on, they had missed another boy joining the fray and taking a swing at the smaller of Hat Boy's lackeys.

"Hey, why don't you mind your own business?" The large, hulking lackey spat at him.

"It is my business._" _The new boy squared off with the two bullies still remaining standing. "Watching you shake down little kids every day is making me nauseous."

Unfortunately, he forgot about the bully he had hit, who was already back on his feet and lifting a brick to smash over the unsuspecting boy. The girl, who had been watching silently until then, gasped and squeaked, "No!"

Thankfully, Steve chose that moment to snatch up a trashcan lid and bring it down on the bully's head before he caused the other boy any harm. With the tide of the encounter turned, all of the bullies started running, the boy Steve had hit wobbling unsteadily away. Even if he was a bully, the girl briefly prayed that the kid didn't have a concussion.

"Hah! Bullies always run true to form - and I do mean run!" the boy who had helped Steve out yelled after the fleeing boys.

"I woulda worn them down eventually," Steve muttered, pulling the suspender straps that had slipped off his shoulders back up into their rightful place.

"Yeah, when they died of old age," the other boy snorted.

A scowl took over Steve's lips.

"Maybe you wanna go a round or two?" he barked, his fists up and shaking.

His constant companion put her face in her hands.

"Woah there cowboy! Holster those guns! I come in peace." The other boy now had his hand up in the universal sign for peaceful surrender. "Never even occurred to me to stand up to those bums until I saw a shrimp like you do it. You're a real inspiration, you know that?"

"Thanks… I guess." Steve's scowl lessened, and eventually he fell back on the manners his mother had drilled into him, sticking out his hand. "_Steve Rogers._" (2)

"Good to know you, kid. James Buchanan Barnes," the boy - James - informed them, jabbing a thumb towards himself, "My friends call me Bucky."

So, Not-James-but-Bucky, then. If she was to consider herself his friend. Which, well, maybe she shouldn't presume. Normal people didn't like ghosts or befriend them, even if she considered herself amongst the Casper variety.

Of course, as she pondered her likeness to Casper, she missed Not-Bucky-but-James's eyes flicker to her, then back to Steve before leaning over and asking him in a conspiratorial whisper, "So who's the dame?"

"What dame?" she heard Steve say, his eyes narrowing.

Bucky-or-James blinked, glancing confusedly between them.

"You know," the boy started, a bit uncertainly, "The lady, standing right there next to you, wearin' a scarf around her head?"

The girl turned to look right at him, hope she hadn't felt since she had first run into Steve years ago swelling in her.

"You can see me?" she finally asked, reaching slowly out to him.

And he reached back.

* * *

The day she met James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes was the same day she finally got to actually meet Steve Rogers.

* * *

**Next**

**Chapter Three: The Meeting**

* * *

**AN:** I am so ready to continue this story. I saw Ant Man a couple of days ago, and let me tell you... I think I might have gone 80% just to see the eggs at the end. Those of you who have seen it, I bet you get what I mean.

In answer to the question in the last chapter, based on stuff from "Captain America: First Vengeance" (the comic released with the movie), Steve and Bucky met in 1930 when Steve was twelve and Bucky was thirteen. Research, ftw. Also, for everyone trying to write Captain America fanfic and need research reference material, please check out the tumblr blog "Steve Rogers is Historically Accurate" by historicallyaccuratesteve. It is a fantastic resources with all kinds of information and links on historical stuff related to Captain America and WWII. Much of my info concerning Steve's illnesses were found through that blog. I will post links to the blog on my profile if anyone wants to check them out.

Btw:  
(1) All italicized dialogue is from "Captain America: First Vengeance."  
(2) When Steve introduced himself in the comic, he told Bucky that Sarah had just died and that he was living at an orphanage. That just did not work for me, because in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," Steve's mother supposedly doesn't die until the two of them are in their teens at least. I really like Sarah Rogers and that scene after her funeral in CA:TWS is so powerful, I can't let it go. So Sarah will be around for a while longer, and CA:FV can suck an egg on this one.


	3. The Meeting

**Chapter 3: The Meeting**

* * *

It wasn't exactly a meeting, in the most conventional sense.

Mostly because what should've been a handshake and a "hello, how do you do?" failed when her fingers had phased right through the dark haired boy's hand. He startled, and backed away from her then, and she'd let him. She could barely stand to keep looking at him, staring at his hand in disbelief and a trace of fear.

And before she could hear him say anything else, she'd fled the alley, leaving behind two very confused boys.

* * *

Yeah, really meeting them took a while.

What it really took was running away to Central Park and spending a couple weeks of sulking in Sheep Meadow - where actual sheep were living, _that was a real thing?_ (1) - before she could work up the courage to go back. But that was the thing. She always went back.

"You're pullin' my leg, right?" Steve deadpanned.

He stood there with his hands on his hips, brows furrowed, and the corners of his lips tugged down. It would have been hilarious, if the circumstances were different.

"You think I'm makin' this up?" another boy demanded, "I told you when you first met me, there was a lady standing there behind you and you wouldn't believe me. Well, she's back, and I'm not nuts."

The smaller boy's chin lifted in challenge.

"Yeah? Well then, where's she this time?"

"There." He'd pointed right at the space she occupied, just at Steve's shoulder.

Steve whipped around, his narrowed eyes staring straight through her at chest level.

"There's no one there." He waved one of his skinny arms at her.

Everyone in the room went still as his hand caught on her upper arm. If she had a heartbeat, it could have been hammering away. This was the first time Steve had touched her since the day he had bumped into her. It had been so long ago. One of her hands crept up and covered his, squeezing gently.

_I'm here. I'm here. _She mouthed it, willing him to know it.

He pulled his hand back, clutching it to his chest.

"There's-!" he choked out, glancing to the other boy.

"I told you so," the brunet boy said with a smug grin. It faded some as he turned to peer at her. "I'm Bucky. So what are you?"

For a moment, she hesitated, before carefully saying, "I'm a person."

It hardly surprised her though, that his face scrunched uncomprehendingly.

"What?"

She'd actually had a long time to prepare for this possibility and think over how she wanted to respond. It had originally been when she was still overly optimistic and had made a plan for the possible scenario that Steve would figure out she was there. Before she'd canned it when she realized that he may never be able to, considering this time period's stance on mental health and how to deal with it. The time had come, the added company unexpected but welcome.

Gently, she reached out for Steve, taking his hand again. He startled, but this time he didn't draw back. Just stared bug-eyed at his hand. She wondered for a moment how weird it must've been for him to feel but not see. Then she moved past it, tugging Steve along to the desk in the room. The boy let her, and Bucky followed behind them. Guiding his hand, she got him to pick up a piece of charcoal on the desk with his small fingers and put it to a scrap of paper that had scribbles and discarded sketches on it.

Across the empty space at the bottom, in shaky penmanship that was a blend of his and hers, they began to write, _"Hello, It's-"_

She crossed out 'It's'.

"_You-"_

That was crossed out too.

Finally, she settled on, _"I am Rukhsana."_

"Ruck-Sanna?" Bucky tried to sound out.

"Maybe it's more like 'Rux-Anna?'" Steve attempted.

The boys would carry on for another couple minutes, squabbling over who was more correct. She let just them.

Rukhsana's eyes had fluttered closed, her head canting at the sound - no matter how improper the pronunciation - of her name. The feeling of it in the air, on her eardrums.

It was like music.

* * *

When the boys had stopped bickering, they shared grins and at once came to the decision that she was "their secret."

They were very interested in knowing more about her, and why exactly she was the way she was. It wasn't that easy, to say the least. There were things she did know, or at least felt very sure about. She was Rukhsana. That was something years of being like she hadn't stripped her of. She used to have a father and a mother, and she'd been going to school. School in New York, where she'd lived all her life.

Sometimes they would ask questions, like why she wore her hijab, and her mind would swim for a bit before she could answer almost by rote why women wore a hijab traditionally. And then explain that she wore hers for completely different reasons.

But sometimes they would ask what her last name was, or what she'd been studying at school, and she couldn't tell them anything though she tried.

Maybe it was frustrating, but she could communicate, that was what mattered. The only true limit was their age and gaps in knowledge. If an explanation of something really demanded more than what her creativity with written examples and charades could convey, then it really wasn't worth explaining to them just yet.

And the put out looks on their faces when she would write, "Tell you when you're older," were so rewarding. Maybe it made her an awful person, but she always enjoyed messing with the two of them. She'd tickle Steve or muss up his perfectly done hair. Make faces at Bucky when he was chatting up a girl or trying to focus at the Coney Island shooting game stands.

If she wasn't finding a way to put her ghostly existence to good use for pranks, she'd trail along after them, to school, to the dance halls, to dinners together. Or bounce between the two when they separated at the end of the day to their respective homes. She liked the "Steve and Sarah" show plenty, but it was really nice to add "Bucky and Family" to her viewing list.

It was funny, how time seemed to go by so quick.

While Steve's height didn't match the passage of time as well as Bucky's did, they both bore the marks of boys growing into young men.

She prided herself a bit in having some influence. Little things like smudge shading and keeping the thumb outside the fist were pretty basic things to know, but it meant a lot to have been there to teach them a bit and encourage them. And sure, now she somewhat felt like the student became the master several times over, but she could still slip them the answers on homework and tests.

Sometimes, it only felt like yesterday that she first watched Steve pick up a pencil or piece of charcoal and start putting clumsy sketches on a paper, or stand up to a bully twice his size. Years later, clumsy sketches were now illustrations that were good enough to make the papers for pay if he put his mind to it, and even the ones that didn't make it were great. Of course, he still got into even more fights, and ended up just as busted up for it as ever.

But Bucky was always there to get him out of the worst of it. Rukhsana would sometimes thank the god she didn't always believe in that he had joined her in orbit around Steve. Now, there was rarely a day she didn't see the two of them together, shoulder to shoulder. Bucky'd gotten so big and tough so fast. It was such a relief, because if she'd had two yappy pint-sized puppies on her hands to keep out of trouble, she have considered going back to Iran on a permanent vacation from the stress. At least Bucky could hold his own and then some while Steve was off nipping at people's ankles.

All in all, her afterlife was looking better, thanks to them.

Except for those times when it didn't.

* * *

Steve, his brows furrowed and lips pinched. He added a line here. Shadowing there. Then he turned the sketch pad around and held it up.

"Does that look right?"

Bucky paused, both gloved hands coming up to stop the swaying punching bag. He turned and squinted. Then he glanced just past Steve at the figure at the other teen's shoulder and back.

"The face still isn't right."

"Aww, Buck!"

"I dunno," the brunet boy said, knocking one glove against the other, "What do you think Ruxie?"

Considering she hadn't seen her own reflection in decades, she was not a good judge of her own appearance. All she could offer him was a shrug.

"See, even Ruxie agrees with me," he teased with a wink in her direction, before resuming his workout.

Steve snorted. "I don't need to see her to know she didn't just agree with you."

Rukhsana patted his head. Then she reached down to tap his right hand. He sat up a little straighter.

"Thanks Ruxie. Glad you like it," he told her with a tiny smile, "Still wish I could get it right, but at least it's better than what Buck could do."

"Oi!" Bucky squawked, though he didn't stop hitting the punching bag, "I'll have you know I am very talented!"

"Yeah, just not artistically," Steve shot back turning the sketch pad back over and inspecting his drawing.

"So mean Stevie. Maybe I shouldn't invite you over for dinner, huh?"

"I thought you were coming over for dinner with Ma 'n me?"

"Oh yeah. Well, maybe I just won't come then."

"And miss pie?"

Bucky grunted, earning him a snicker from Steve. Rukhsana drifted over into Bucky's line of sight, shaking her head at him.

"Ma's expectin' you, she'll be so disappointed. And you know she always makes extra pie for you to take home for 'Becca. How could you do that to your sweet, baby sister?"

Rukhsana closed her eyes, resting the back of one hand against her forehead and grasping at her heart dramatically.

He was about to respond, but was cut off when someone burst into the gym, startling the three of them. It was an older woman that the girl immediately recognized as one of the Rogers's neighbors. The woman searched the gym a bit frantically before her eyes landed on Steve.

"Oh Steve, thank goodness, she said I would find you here!" She ran over to him.

"Mrs. O'Brien, what are you doing here?" Steve asked, standing to meet her.

"It's your mother." Her purse was clutched tightly in her white knuckled grip. "She collapsed."

* * *

It wasn't the end of good times per say, but she'd look back and miss seeing the boys so unaware of how short life could be.

They were old enough now, maybe, but no one was ever really ready to understand loss.

* * *

**Next**

**Chapter Four: The Mother***

* * *

**AN:** I love how a couple of you noticed in chapters past that I never actually let her name be used until this point. I'm being very tight fisted with Rukhsana's personal information. Part because I like doing that for effect, part because somethings are a little spoilery, and part because there are still parts of her character that are in development.

(1) As someone who never lived in New York, this is all research on Central Park and Sheep Meadow. I'm just amused that by the idea of Sheep Meadow being a place Rukhsana used to hang out at and being surprised that the name came from actual sheep.  
*Changed from "The War" to "The Mother"


	4. The Mother

**Chapter Four: The Mother**

* * *

Maybe she knew very little about losing people to illness, but that didn't mean she knew nothing about what losing a parent was like. And maybe watching a parent waste away was worse than just suddenly losing them. She'd been there for a long time with the Rogers. Though Sarah had always had a bit of fragility to her, there had also been an equal measure of strength present that had made her seem larger than what she was. Her illness had slowly but surely started chipping away at that strength, leaving her even frailer than Steve in body and spirit.

And she had to watch it happen.

She wondered if maybe it would've been better knowing that death had been coming for Baba. Maybe if she'd known, that last day as he'd been home, maybe she would've held him a little tighter before he left.

No, not maybe. Definitely.

* * *

He drew Sarah a lot.

The long stretches he spent at his mother's bedside, he'd painstakingly sketch her out. All forms of Sarah; of her at work, or out walking on the street, or in the kitchen, or even there in her sickbed. He didn't waste any paper either. If he finished a sketch in one corner, he'd start another in the next. Rukhsana wondered if he'd permanently stain his fingertips with ink and charcoal, the rate he was going at.

There was nothing wrong with it, not really. Steve was entitled to try and make lasting mementos of her. It made her wish that cameras were a more prominent thing here, for him. That world she used to belong to, so long ago, had been teeming with cameras. They'd been everywhere, even on portable phones, and she would've been hard pressed to go one waking hour without encountering a photo of something or someone somewhere. She remembered - connecting with people over the internet? - whatever it was, she could remember being inundated with pictures of people, of friends and family. The ease of pulling up the visage of a loved one right at your fingertips whenever you wanted it.

It seemed like a dream. Hard to believe it was something that had been real to her. Rukhsana could barely remember the faces of the people she used to know, and that couldn't be blamed on the holes in her memory she'd started out with. That, losing those faces, it burned. The only faces she really knew anymore consisted of Steve, Bucky, Sarah, and Bucky's family.

And soon, she was going to lose Sarah. No, she shook her head. _Steve_ was going to lose Sarah. Rukhsana never had Sarah to begin with. Not really.

Moving over, she poked and pushed and nudged at Steve. He didn't stop sketching, but he did move as she guided him, sitting up a little straighter to give her better access. She draped herself around him, arms looped around his neck and shoulders and chin resting on top of his head. The hand he wasn't drawing with lifted and grasped at one of her forearms.

"Ruxie…" Steve murmured, heartache heavy in the soft utterance.

He'd told her once that touching her was like touching wind, and that it wasn't cold oddly enough, but warm instead. Sometimes she wondered how a hug from her held up against a hug from a solid living person, like Sarah or even Bucky. She hoped that this could be enough for now. Whenever Bucky got here, she could flail at him until he took her place.

Her eyes squeezed shut as she pressed her face into the crown of Steve's head.

Steve needed all the hugs he could get.

* * *

Sometimes, she needed a break.

Whenever she admitted that much to herself, she always felt awful. It wasn't like Steve got to have breaks. From the minute he woke to the minute he went to sleep, he knew that his mother was suffering and soon to die. An awful part of her mind liked to comment that at least he got to sleep. He got to turn the world and its realities off and for a little while, when she was stuck always there, always awake. Her mind always ran with whatever came to the forefront, and since the day she collapsed, Sarah had remained firmly planted there all day and night and on. She'd just feel worse then, for actually measuring her own misfortune against Steve's.

Who did that?

As horrible as she felt, after long, it wasn't enough to keep her at his side at Sarah's hospital bed for every hour. With fingers that should have shaken under the weight of her shame, she'd tap on the back of his hand to let him know she was going. The first time she succeeded in pulling away, she'd only spent an hour in the room adjacent just remembering what it was like not sharing space with Steve or Sarah.

The couple times following, she'd take a lap around the block, and add a lap every time.

Eventually, it occurred to her to go find Bucky on her solo jaunts out, when he wasn't already parked in the chair next to Steve. Bucky had freaked out originally when she'd dropped in on him while he was out with his old school friend Arnie Roth (1) and a couple girls, thinking that she'd come to tell him Sarah had died. Once she let him him know that Steve and Sarah were fine, he began to relax and afterwards simply let her shadow him.

Bucky was the best distraction from everything.

When she was alone with Steve and Sarah these days, it was like life was on hold. With the way Rukhsana was, she already put up with feeling like that enough.

But Bucky. Life kept moving with him, it had to, even in times like this. He had a job on the weekends to help out his parents with expenses, to be able to afford Becca some nice things. And on nights when he wasn't working or checking on Steve, he found ways to blow off steam with boxing or a night on the town with friends or a dance with some girls.

None of this was new about Bucky, but it felt different for her as he shared it with her, with the noticeable absence of Steve. There was some unspoken agreement that when she came to find him like this, he didn't ask about it, just let her watch him do everything. Sometimes from across the room, sometimes so close, they could have been touching if they didn't already know that wasn't possible. And though he usually didn't speak to her or signal anything, his eyes would flick to her and he'd smile just a little before going back to whatever he was doing, because he knew she wanted to be acknowledged even if she didn't ask for it. It was nicer than she deserved.

And she'd just keep taking whatever he was willing to give because there was so little she got to have.

She'd keep the way he kissed his mother's cheek and ruffled Rebecca's hair when he was on his way out in the morning. The way he snarked and joked around with the men he worked alongside. The way he boxed like he danced and danced like he boxed; all power, grace, and skill and always a marvel to behold. The way he always got better and better at smooth talking the girls, but never any less respectful.

Without fail though, he always came back to Steve. And maybe that was the best part of distracting herself with Bucky Barnes. Because anything or anyone else might have given her just enough of an escape to lose herself in for too long. He helped her find her way back when it was hard to. More than anything else, that was the most important thing she took from him. The ability to leave and the strength to return.

* * *

It was one of those nights where Steve had insisted on staying at Sarah's bedside the entire night and nothing short of both Bucky and her bodily dragging him out could have kept him from it. There had been past instances where that had been necessary, their ninety pound asthmatic almost putting himself in a sickbed as well. But he was healthy enough for now that they'd risk the aches and pains he'd wake up with as a result of sleeping hunched over in a chair over worrying himself into sleeplessness while away from her side. The older boy would stick around for as long as time would allow before clapping Steve on the back and getting up to leave. He'd share a look with Rukhsana, and then close the door quietly behind himself.

Sarah woke, so still and quietly that Steve never roused. In fact, Rukhsana didn't even realize that the woman was awake until she heard the softest bit of sound in the room. She drifted closer, and saw that Sarah's eyes were open and her lips were moving. Leaning in, she caught the faintest of words.

"-orry for doubting," Sarah murmured, "For mistaking the blessing you sent as something else."

The apparition smiled sadly at the words. It was just like Sarah to be praying even now.

"I didn't know," the woman shuddered out, a tear leaking out of the corner of her eye, "I didn't know."

Something in her tightened at the sight of the tears.

"You sent an angel to watch over us. To watch over Stevie. And I was scared, I didn't understand. But I do. Now. I understand. Thank you, so much, for watching over us."

Her eyes squeezed shut for a count of ten, reeling at what Sarah was saying about - about what she assumed was _her_. All this time she'd spent trying to make sure she wouldn't suspect, that Steve would never get in trouble like her almost had. Maybe it had been for nothing.

"I just hope it's not - not too much to ask that your angel stays with him? Even when I'm gone?"

"Oh Sarah," Rukhsana murmured, starting momentarily at the sound of her own voice before shaking it off and moving even closer, "You don't even have to ask."

"Please. For him, _please._"

"I'll be there," the girl swore, her hand hovering over Sarah's, "I'll be there for him."

The woman's pleas went on for a while longer, and the ghostly girl kept promising she'd do what was being asked of her. In her heart, she knew she was crying right alongside the dying woman. If only she could hear Rukhsana. Or even feel her touch, so that she could feel her, and know that someone else was there for her in her final moments. So that she could understand how she mattered, even to someone she didn't really know.

But she couldn't.

All Rukhsana could do was reach for Steve's hand like it was a tether and grip it as tightly as she dared without waking him. That and listen to the sounds of her own grief, unheard by anyone else in that quiet room.

* * *

Sarah passed in the morning.

Rukhsana couldn't even remember the right words to say, stuttering to a stop at _Inna lillahi- _(2)

* * *

Winifred Barnes and Mrs. O'Brien had stepped in immediately to help with taking care of all arrangements for the funeral. Steve was, well, it was safe to say that he was in no way fit to do it himself. It terrified both Bucky and her, had them worrying that after Sarah, Steve could fall into a major sick spell and then he would-

But he came out of it not long after, much to their relief. He still wasn't up to handling anything more strenuous than just trying to get through the days. Rukhsana would be right there to steady his shaking hands and push him through the motions and at night, she was curled around him as he slept. Bucky was practically staying every night with his parents' permission, sleeping in Steve's room while Steve was in Sarah's, there in case something came up that she couldn't take care of on her own.

The funeral itself was on a sunny day, something small to be grateful for. If it had been raining, the cold and wet would have been terrible for Steve. They didn't have any delusions about whether they would have been able to keep him from going even if it had been raining. After the priest and everyone had spoken and Sarah was laid to rest next to Joseph Rogers, Steve ambled off. Bucky and his parents had been set to give him a ride, hopefully to bring him back to their house for a quiet dinner and maybe to have him stay the night. Rukhsana hung back long enough to let the older boy know Steve had taken off, and together, they went after him.

They caught him just as he was making the laborious effort to climb up the stairs to his and Sarah's - just his, now - apartment. As Bucky started talking to the withdrawn boy, she placed a hand lightly on the place where the back of his neck met his shoulders, massaging it gently. A smile touched her lips at Bucky grabbing the spare key when Steve started fumbling trying to get his own. He'd forgotten it and not even paid attention to her attempts to get him to retrieve it when he left this morning.

"Thank you, Buck, Ruxie, but I can get by on my own now," Steve muttered quietly as he took the key and pushed away her hand.

"The thing is, you don't have to," Bucky told him, looking him right in the eye and putting a firm hand on his left shoulder. Rukhsana mirrored the act with a hand on Steve's other shoulder, getting a soft smile from the taller boy in response before he focused back on their friend, "I'm with you to the end of the line, pal." (3)

She gave Steve's shoulder a squeeze, hoping it echoed the sentiments of Bucky's words. With a sigh, the shorter boy nodded, one hand reaching up to grip hers and the other clasping the crook of Bucky's elbow.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know."

And then he turned away to let himself in. After a long pause at the door and a loud intake of breath, he walked in, leaving the door open behind him. Glancing at each other briefly, Bucky and Rukhsana both followed him in, shutting the door as they went.

* * *

On certain days later on, she would return to Sarah's grave and pray that one day mother and son could be reunited happily in paradise. Maybe even that someday, she could be released from this and truly meet them - meet Baba - there.

It was a nice hope, but one that would not come to be.

* * *

**Next**

**Chapter Five: The War**

* * *

**AN:** You all are the best, I am so glad you seem to like Rukhsana's name (and nickname). This chapter was originally supposed to briefly acknowledge the death and segue straight into the build up towards the war, but I realized that after making such a big fuss about Sarah Rogers, I needed to honor her with a whole chapter. Also, just so all of you know, the story pic for this was my attempt at drawing Rukhsana wearing her hijab. This is the closest I've gotten to depicting her, but I still think it could use some work. And I have a question for you: **Which theory do you prefer - that Bucky volunteered for the army or that he was drafted?**

(1) Arnie Roth: I just wanted to highlight this character, because I never knew until I researched that in the comics, Steve had a different best friend whom they practically modeled MCU!Bucky after. Finding out almost convinced me to write Bucky as Jewish, though I decided against it because I wouldn't know how to accurately portray it. Arnie is such a fascinating character and though I don't have time to fit him in, at least I can encourage people to look him up.  
(2) Rukhsana was trying to say "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un", which, if my research is correct, means "Verily we belong to Allah, and truly to Him shall we return" and is meant to be said upon death. If anyone finds any of this information incorrect, please tell me.  
(3) All of the dialogue in this snippet was taken or adapted from the flashback scene in CA:WS.

(Gross, shameless plug: Do you like superhero OC stories? Do you like the Flash? Well, this idiot writer has just started an OC Flash story called "The Thing About Pain", so check it out!)


	5. The War

**Chapter Five: The War**

* * *

The first year without Sarah was the hardest.

Before the end, the woman had done her best to prepare Steve - and Bucky to an extent - for how to get by without her. They had the basics of what they needed to do with money, food, most other things. It was just a matter of becoming accustomed to doing it themselves, all the while dealing with the looming grief of knowing that the person who had done it for them before was gone. Steve had almost broken down once, when he went out to purchase his own medicine for the first time. And then again later, when Rukhsana and Bucky stepped in to keep him on his medication schedule when he had a hard time maintaining it himself.

They - meaning the boys with Rukhsana just tagging along - ended up getting an apartment together not long after. No one talked about the driving reason for it. It would've mortified Steve to acknowledge it, even if he knew deep down that he couldn't bare the idea of doing it all without them. Codependence at it's finest. A term Rukhsana somehow recalled, among all the other odds and ends of that other time she still had rattling around in her head. But she wasn't going to be the one to draw attention to how dysfunctional were. These were just patterns of behavior that had kind of always been there.

After all, she'd been going strong obsessively caring for those boys for so very long. It wasn't a habit she was going to kick anytime soon.

* * *

"_Steve! Pssst! Steve!_" (1)

It shouldn't have surprised her that in one minute, everything was the usual and in the next it would all be torn apart.

"_She ever gonna take her clothes off?_"

"_Eventually she does, yeah._"

On that day in December, they were sat in an art class trying to draw the model of the day, a beautiful redheaded woman in a pink robe. Bucky was running commentary throughout half to get Steve to participate in their usual antics, and half to get a snicker out of Rukhsana as she floated in the periphery of his vision. She admired both their products as well. The blond's work was always perfect, the model looking striking yet also dreamy as she stared out from his pad. In comparison, the brunet's attempt was a mockery; just a little blocky figure whose only identifying marks were red and pink splotches that were meant to be her hair and robe.

"_About what time?" _the older of the two asked, holding his pad at a distance to just admire his work, "_I got to go to the can and I don't want to miss it."_

"_The whole concept of art appreciation isn't really sinking in with you, is it, Bucky?"_ the younger gibed, finally getting into the act.

"_What? _She's _art." _He looked the ghostly girl right in the eye and winked before looking away. "_I appreciate her._"

That was pretty standard of him, honestly. Sure, Bucky did appreciate art somewhat. He had a good eye for picking out details - colors and lines and patterns - but it didn't translate to his hands creating something. The closest he ever got to doing something artistic well was when he tried actually drawing or painting faces. Though, he seemed a bit stuck on same kind of face. Oval shaped, longish nose, slightly down slanted eyes, average lips. That face could be considered attractive, but there had been half a dozen models with softer, prettier features for him to reproduce. It puzzled her that Steve, who jumped at every chance to criticize their friend's art mistakes, never said a word about it.

"_You got a funny way of showing it._"

The blond man gestured at the other's pad, a sardonic smirk tugging at his lips.

Laying the Brooklyn accent on heavily, the other man spoke, "_Philistine! You are talking to the next Picasso._"

"_It's true what they say then. Art is dead,_" came the swift deadpan response.

Rukhsana shook with mirth, warranting a look from the larger man, who mouthed 'traitor' at her and then waved a hand dismissively at the smaller. She was sure they would have continued their witty repartee for the entire session, but they were interrupted when someone burst through the door, yelling -

"_War! We're at war!"_

If she had a stomach with a bottom, it would've dropped at those words.

As it was, the world seemed to stop, and nothing else the man said came through. All she could do was let her focus narrow down to Steve and Bucky. Both had gone when rigid with shock. But as grim determination took over the smaller of them, a fearful resignation raced across the other's features. The brunet's eyes met with hers and she wondered what her own expression looked like. If maybe looking into his face, she was seeing a mirror of her own. And for the first time in a long time, she forgot herself and tried to reach for him.

Her hand went through his shoulder when she went to grasp it, making him shiver and her pull back as if she'd been burned.

"Ruxie," he whispered, lurching forward from his seat after her.

"No." Her hands pressed to either side of her head as she shook it back and forth. "No."

And she fled.

* * *

When she died, she'd been, what? Eighteen, maybe nineteen? All this time, she'd kept careful track of the passage of time. Every day, every year. At first, it was to see how long she'd been stuck. Back then, she'd still thought something about her situation would change. Maybe she'd wake up and somehow be alive again, as if this never happened. And later, having long given up on that idea, she'd wondered if maybe she would just pass on. To what, she didn't know, but the longer she was like this, the less it mattered.

Eventually, keeping track became less about how long she'd been stuck, and more acknowledging time had passed and that something had changed. She didn't know what she looked like anymore, so she could pretend she was still getting older, aging. That each year was _twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two… thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two..._

But the real change was when she met Steve and Bucky.

If she thought it was strange seeing them go from kids to teens, it was even stranger to see them grow into actual adults. She and Bucky liked to joke that Steve still looked like he was twelve, but even he had matured. Maybe not in any physically dramatic way, but when she looked at him now, he actually did have an air of adulthood around him that was a far cry from the boy he used to be. Not that that would ever stop her from always seeing him as _her boy_ in her mind.

The change was a lot starker in Bucky, however. He'd already been so strong and confident in his own body, and somehow, he'd grown even more so. It was near impossible to reconcile him with the child she'd met so long ago. Hard to look at him as living proof of just how long she'd been following these two _men_ around.

They were older now than she'd been when she'd died, but that didn't make them any more ready for that next and final step.

When he was little, Steve had been regaled with stories from Sarah about his father, stories Rukhsana knew just as well having heard them just as often. Volunteered for the army and fought in the Great War. Died in it, too. The boy still had the purple heart medal and the folded flag kept in a place of honor in his room, right next to a framed sketch of his mother. So it wasn't surprising that he would see serving his country - and if need be, dying for it - a greater cause.

What did surprise her was that Bucky was humoring him.

She'd only left them long enough to quell what she was sure would've been a panic attack under different circumstances, before she raced back. Along the way, she'd mentally berated herself for leaving her friend like that, abandoning him right after getting such awful news. Just as she'd found them, an apology on the tip of her tongue, he was agreeing to train their ninety-pounds-while-soaking-wet idiot so he could enlist right along with him. He'd met her gaze with his own right at that moment, and paled.

"Ruxie," he said, taking a step back.

"What is wrong with you?" she shrieked, making angry swipes that barely passed for hand signs, _How could you! _(2)

Words kept spilling out from her fingers and hands, but she hardly knew what she was saying anymore.

"Is Rukhsana there?" she heard Steve ask off to the side.

That fool would be in for it next, he just needed to wait his turn.

"Yeah," Bucky answered faintly, still focused on her.

"What is she saying?"

"I can barely make it out." The taller man winced. "But I can tell she's mad. At both of us."

"Rux-" the shorter began.

He was cut off by a forceful poke to his shoulder.

"I'm pretty sure she wants you to wait until she's done with me," the brunet joked with a weak smirk, and had to take another step back when she swung her finger around until it was angrily pointed right under his nose, "Right, yeah."

"He can't!" she cried, no longer bothering with signs as her arm fell away, "You can't..."

It was draining out of her. All that rage. All that fear. Numbness was settling in.

She stared at Bucky, who looked so torn and she knew. There was no way he wasn't aware that Steve's chances of making it to war were as slim as his own of staying out of it. At least this way, he was doing one last thing to look out for their friend, to either get him where he wanted to go or give him a way to look out for himself while he was gone.

Because Bucky was going to be gone and who was going to look out for him?

Dragging her arms back up, she signed to him, _It's not fair._

"It's not about fair, doll." And then he glanced over at Steve, who looked lost like he always did during Bucky-Rukhsana only conversations, then back. "You need a hug?"

Sluggishly, she nodded once.

"Stevie."

The other man had already been moving while the question was being asked, one hand out reaching in her direction until it met its mark. His thin arms looped firmly around her, and he hooked his chin on her shoulder. She returned the embrace, pulling him in even closer, but couldn't take her gaze off of Bucky who stayed off to the side, just watching them. Eyes dragging carefully over them, as if trying to commit them permanently to memory.

* * *

Steve's training regimen started right away, before she could even finish reeling from the news. Bucky didn't take it easy on the other man. They didn't have time to wait for her to be okay with it, since their plan was to enlist just before Christmas. The thought of it made her sick. If she thought last couple Christmases had been painful without Sarah, it was nothing in comparison to knowing that at least one of them would be a soldier by Christmas Day. (3) That this year might be the last they would ever celebrate together.

All too soon, Christmas Eve was upon them, and instead of getting together with the Barnes clan for the day, Bucky and Steve had parked themselves in line with Arnie Roth at the U.S. Recruiting and Induction Station on Governors Island. Rukhsana had sidled up to Steve and snatched his hand into her own as inconspicuously as she could. She held his hand all through the line, and up until he was called in before Bucky. They shared quick words of encouragement, and she couldn't help but look back at the other man.

_Do you want me to stay with you? _She asked him.

There was a warm grin on his face as he shook his head, making subtle shooing gestures with the hand he kept down at his side. She couldn't help but repeat the question, just in case he was trying to be brave and needed her to press. But he just kept shaking at his head no.

That meant she was there with the shorter man as he was examined and summarily dismissed with the heavy thud of a '4F' stamp on his forms. Rukhsana tried not to celebrate what she'd known would happen too much. Especially when she caught the frustrated tears wetting Steve's eyes as he roughly pulled his clothing back on, and when he shrugged off her hand on his shoulder. They walked out together just in time to catch the tail end of Bucky and Arnie discussing their respective assignments to the army and navy.

Bucky turned to face them and immediately read the results in the tense hunch of blond's shoulders. He tried for an apology but the shorter man, didn't let him and just brushed past. For a moment, she wanted to go running after Steve like she always did, to keep him from doing something stupid. But for once, she knew that Steve wasn't where she needed to be. Glancing at her other friend who looked at a loss, she knew that this was who she needed to be with right now.

Floating into his line of sight, she signed at him, _Want to get out of here?_

With the slightest of nods, he turned to his other companion and said, "Gotta go, Roth."

"Let's grab a drink with Rogers before it's time to go, eh Barnes?" the other man asked with a casual wave.

"Just say when," the brunet shot back absently as he followed her.

"I'll hold you to it!" Arnie called after him.

They walked out into the snowy New York night together. Bucky grumbled a bit about Steve and pneumonia to himself, but fell silent after a while. She drifted ahead, gliding backwards so she could face him. Waving at him for a moment to get his attention.

_Are you okay?_

"Can't say," he answered her, looking up at the dark sky as white continued to drift down on them from above, "Almost wanted him to make it. But this is probably the best thing. He'll be safer here, with you."

The man dropped his gaze back down and waited for her to say something. Impulsively, she began to form words with her fingers.

_I would go with you, _she offered after another long bout of silence, _If you asked me to._

And for a long moment, he just stared at her, standing stock still as the snow kept falling and landing in his hair and on his shoulders. His expression was stunned for the longest time, until something both happy and sad chased across it.

"I wouldn' though," he finally spoke, ducking his head but keeping her in his sights, "Steve'll need you. An' you'll need him, too."

_And you? _She mouthed and signed as she got closer, looking up at him.

"I'll get by, somehow," he told her, a hint of promise creeping into his voice as he raised his hand and let it hover over her cheek, "An' then, I'll come home to you both."

* * *

Everyone went to war praying to come home from it. But some people didn't get to come home. And others, maybe they got back somehow, but found no home to return to.

* * *

**Next**

**Chapter Six:** The Scientist

* * *

**AN:** Oh God, it's here. Civil War is here. I'm not ready. I'm on Team PLEASEDON'THURTEACHOTHER and we're gonna lose. It's likely some of you will have already seen the movie before I do, so if you have to have spoilers in the reviews, just be gentle please? Also, I promise I'll try to stop ending chapters so ominously. Before I end this AN with research notes, a couple things:

\- I recommend watching these Marvelverse music videos, [Never Going Home] a Cap video to the song "Ghost of You" by My Chemical Romance, or the Iron Man one to the song "Handlebars" by Flobots.  
\- I have a poll up on my profile for this story and - eugh - pairings, because I thought I had them figured out but I guess not. Help a girl out?  
\- Please recommend some good SI/OC Marvelverse fics. I have a mighty need.

(1) Italicized dialogue pulled straight from "Captain America: First Vengeance." A couple of other details in this chapter pulled from it, but I figure you'll know just what.  
(2) Some italicized parts are Rukhsana using American Sign Language. I thought I was pretty clear about it, but just in case I wasn't, now you know.  
(3) Continuity issue: the Marvel wikia claims that Sarah died when Steve was like 22-23, a year before he enlisted. Yet again, I pulled an "eff you Marvel," because it's just cruel to kill his mom and then send him war right after. So Sarah died 3-4 years before the events of the first Captain America movie instead.


	6. The Scientist

**Chapter Six: The Scientist**

* * *

The men who had successfully enlisted during that snowy Christmas weekend of 1941 were given about two weeks to spend with families and wrap up loose ends before reporting to Camp McCoy. (1) That meant Bucky got to spend Christmas and New Year's at home before he had to leave for training.

Between exchanged gifts, warm embraces, God awful singing, and good food, cheer stayed high enough during Christmas. While they had been at the Barnes' home, Winifred had wrapped each boy up in big, strong hugs. Even little Becca, who'd been going through a phase of being too old for hugs from her brother, had tucked herself into his side for most of the night along with their younger brother and sister. Both Rukhsana and Steve hadn't been able to hold back their soppy smiles at the sight the Barnes siblings made.

New Year's Eve had been just for the three of them, though. The boys grabbed a beer and settled in on the roof of their apartment building to wait for the countdown. Steve and Bucky passed the one bottle between themselves, more for warmth than for any desire to actually get drunk. Rukhsana nestled in on Steve's left while Bucky had an arm slung over the smaller man's shoulders on his right. They all stared avidly down at the pocket watch, flipped open and sitting in the lap of the man in the middle, as the needles moved closer to midnight. And when finally the seconds needle ticked down the last _ten, nine, eight, seven, six_ \- they whispered and tapped along - _five, four, three, two, one_ seconds, they shot to their feet and cheered and as sound and light erupted in the city.

The brunet crowed a laugh before dragging the blond man in using the arm around his shoulder to smack an exaggerated kiss to the top of his head. Not to be left out, the ghostly girl went with them, darting in to give a kiss of her own. All Steve could do was squawk helplessly at the two of them.

"Happy New Year!"

"Yeah, back at ya, ya jerk." Carefully, the blond turned his head to face her and let his lips tentatively touch her cheek, pressing more firmly when it made contact. "And to you Ruxie."

Sharing a grin with Bucky over his head, she let her head drop so that her forehead rested against Steve's temple.

It was a really good night. A really good morning.

And a little less than two weeks later, they said goodbye as Bucky got on the train that would take him to Wisconsin. The minute his train was out of sight, she was trailing after Steve to another recruitment office.

* * *

The next year and a half passed. Quickly. Slowly. And in other ways.

Bucky at training.

Steve trying and failing at other recruitment offices.

As many letters as they could afford back and forth.

The occasional visit from Bucky home.

The same from Rukhsana to him.

Bucky's birthday.

Her placeholder birthday during Nowruz. (2)

Steve's birthday.

More training, enlistment, letters, visits.

And then, Bucky was back.

For how long, none of them could guess beyond _not long at all_. But the uncertainty was brushed aside. Bucky was back. That was all that mattered.

* * *

On an insignificant day in the middle of all of it - a jolt like fire shot through her and her vision whited out for a moment. It passed as quickly as it came, leaving her wondering just what had happened and where it had come from. She missed how for the rest of the day, the world around her was tinged just the slightest bit an unearthly blue.

* * *

When Bucky had gotten his orders, Rukhsana had known immediately. She knew her boys pretty well, and could tell when something was up. That, and she was a ghost and a snoop and those two things went hand in hand very nicely. Not even a day had passed and she'd found the letter with the date he'd ship out to England. June 15th. Less than a week out from when the missive had arrived.

"Don't tell him. Not yet."

That's all he had to say when he saw her face after she'd found out. And though it didn't sit right with her that well, she understood. The longer their friend had to think about Bucky leaving, the more desperate he was to enlist. It wasted valuable time they could be spending together while they were all home, especially when the outcome hadn't changed any of the other times he'd tried.

Keeping a secret was easy when the person to keep it from couldn't see the secrecy on her face or hear it in her voice. So Steve remained clueless, all the way up until the day before it was time to go. Their artist had left early that day to run some errands and had planned to meet them at the theater. However, she'd been asked by the soldier to stay back and let the other man head there first unaccompanied.

"You know I'm leaving tomorrow, right?" the brunet asked once their other roommate had departed.

The girl nodded.

"Wait here for a bit, okay?"

Nodding again, she drifted over to the window to look down at the streets and over the skyline of Brooklyn. A sound from behind her pulled her away. Turning to look, she found Bucky standing there in his uniform, hat held in his hand as he peered back at her with his head cocked to the side. It struck her like it did so many times in the last couple years how old he had gotten, how much an adult he looked in that uniform. Even still, that curious gaze still reminded her of the boy she'd met who'd finally seen her for the first time.

"So how do I look?" he asked with a smirk, lifting his arms up and out and giving her a turn for better inspection.

_Handsome like always, _she answered earnestly, wanting to bravely answer his smirk with a matching one but falling short with the wobbliness of her lips.

The expression slipped from his face and his arms dropped as he moved closer to her.

"I wanted to show you something," he told her, his hands tapping at his hat a bit.

Then he reached into the hat itself and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He set about unfolding and flipping it outwards so she could look at it herself. Her brows knit together as she took in the hand drawn features of the face she'd come to recognize from all of her friend's attempts to draw a woman's face. Girl's face really, the youth was really apparent in this draft. She almost couldn't believe it was his work with how lovingly and precise he'd worked out the details and everything else, but it was that face so it had to be him who'd drawn it.

But there was one thing about the drawing that left her looking questioningly at him.

"It's you," he answered, "You always told us that you didn't remember what you looked like, and well, if Stevie couldn't draw you, then..."

Nodding, she moved in to look more closely at what was supposed to be _her face_.

"I've never been able to get everything completely right- I've been trying, but this is one of the best. I left one with Stevie so he'd be able to see it, know what you look like, let you see it, too. But I figured I gotta have a picture of my best girl with me when I go, you know?"

Wow. Bucky wasn't one to trip over his words and babble, that was more Steve's thing. Rukhsana glanced up at him, then back down at the drawing. Was that really her? It was hard to take ownership of any of the features depicted on the paper. The eyes, the nose, the chin, all of it. Only the hijab framing the face and untucked bits of hair seemed right. Was that really what she looked like?

"Ruxie? Rukhsana?"

Glancing up again, she saw his gaze was on her, his expression expectant.

Finally, she lifted her hands and signed, _This is__ me?_

His eyes were impossibly soft. A gentleness there that was reserved primarily for Steve, or his siblings. Or her.

"Yeah."

_Thank you. _She quirked a bemused smile at him. _You probably made me too pretty._

"On the contrary, doll, I haven't done you justice yet."

_Sure, _she returned with an eyeroll before floating past him towards the door, facing him so he could still see her sign, _I bet you a dollar Steve got in a fight while we were here._

"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," Bucky groaned, carefully folding the drawing up and putting it back into his hat, "That's a fool's bet. Now, let's go get him."

* * *

Unsurprisingly, their punk had been exactly where they'd guessed getting a beat down in the alley behind the theater. After the chump was sent packing and Steve was dusted off and back on his feet - "_I had him on the ropes" _\- Bucky was the one who took up the job of chiding Steve about enlisting, and Rukhsana took vicious glee in the opportunity to poke the shorter man to emphasize the other's words. Like usual though, it just went over his head as he changed the subject to the other man's uniform and what wearing it meant. Just as unwilling to stick with the new topic, Bucky proposed going somewhere else. When she started pouting, he pointed a finger at her.

"Don't you give me that look, both you and Steve've already watched this cartoon once, you a lot more 'n that with all the times you've snuck in to see it." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Besides, you'll both like where we're heading even more."

A newspaper was tossed to the shorter man. Peering over his shoulder, she was sure that if anyone could actually hear her, they'd know the kind of embarrassing noises she made when she was excited. This was the one time not hearing her was an upside to this stupid set up, though she still quickly hid her face in Steve's neck so she didn't have to see the smug look that was likely to be on Bucky's. When Steve asked if she was okay, she just tapped his right hand and followed with mock grumpiness when their other friend started dragging him off to the Stark Expo.

Keeping up the fake disgruntlement was impossible once they made it to the Expo. Everything was just so bright and amazing. The cheesy way in which her friend had said "the future" earlier really captured the essence of this event. It was the future. As her friends and their dates stood in the audience watching on as Howard Stark presenting a flying car, she couldn't help but drift closer. This was was _The Howard Stark. _Though her mind was still kind of fuzzy on some things, she knew this man and what he meant to the future. Founder of Stark Enterprises and father of _The Tony Stark_. Tony Stark who was… important. Somehow. She knew that, though she wasn't sure why or how the name had even come to her.

Maybe he was meant to be an inventor as brilliant if not more so than his father. That sounded right.

Maybe even succeed where his father failed with the flying car, she thought to herself with a snicker as something inside the contraption sputtered and exploded within. Rukhsana had managed to get up to the front of the audience to stare right up at him. She shook her head with a chuckle at the way he tried to laugh it off. Glancing up again, she noticed the inventor staring intently down into the audience near her with a furrow in his brow. Frowning, she glanced backwards to try and catch what he was looking so closely at. Taking in the crowd behind had her realizing neither Steve or Bucky, or even their dates were where she had left them. Forgetting about Howard Stark, she phased through the crowd in search of them.

(She missed the way the man dropped the microphone he'd been holding when she did.)

Her eyes landed on a sign for enlistment and she could already guess what had happened. Seeing her boys having it out in the hall of the recruitment center confirmed it for her. She sighed and slipped in quietly to take hold of the shorter's hand as the taller's eyes passed briefly over her in the midst of what he was saying. It was the same fight, with either her or Bucky tagged in for the given time. This time, she didn't butt in, too tired to do so knowing that this would be the last fight these two would get to have over this. There would be plenty of times for her to do it on her own later on.

It was over before she even knew it anyway, and soon the two of them were hugging it out like she knew they would.

"Don't win the war till I get there!" Steve called to the brunet as he began to walk away from them.

Bucky turned to give them both a cocky salute. Rukhsana made to follow, but he stopped her with a hand held out.

_Stay, _he signed to her, _Keep an eye out for him tonight. And come see me before I go._

_Okay, _she finally responded grudgingly, disappointed that she and Steve weren't going to stick with him during his last night, _Have fun. And make sure those girls have a good time, too._

With a wink and a tip of the hat, he spun around and was off. It almost made her roll her eyes again when she found Steve had wandered off again. She eventually found him sitting nervous and alone in curtained off examination area. He practically jumped when she tapped him on the shoulder.

"I think I need to get out of here," he whispered to her, going to grab his shoes.

A military police office stepping in through the curtains put a stop to that. The low grade anxiety she'd been feeling for her friend skyrocketed at that. She snatched his hand and started frantically tapping, _Get Bucky? _(3)

Very subtly, he gave his head a shake and grasped her hand. _Wait._

Tension over took them for a moment as an older man with frizzy hair and a white coat came in and dismissed the MP. Even at his entrance, she and Steve waited on the edge of their seats for him to speak. He introduced himself as Dr. Abraham Erskine and then began one of the most nerve wracking conversations with Steve she had ever been spectator, too. She'd winced at her friend's tactless question about where the doctor had come from, and frantically tried to pull away to go find their other friend when said doctor started listing his failed enlistment attempts.

Nothing could have prepared her for the sharp turn the conversation took with the repetition of the question of "_Do you want to kill Nazis?_" Her friend's answer was so textbook Steve it had her giggling somewhat hysterically. Not liking bullies was the reason he'd been beaten up in nearly every back alley from Manhattan to Queens. Pride and affection warred with horrific realization as a small smile chased across Dr. Erskine's face. He led her friend - as well as her since her hand was still held firmly in her friend's - to a desk outside the curtains.

There was a thud of a stamp, a rustle of a folder being opened, and a relieved sigh.

A 1A had been stamped into the box in the right corner of Steve's enlistment form.

* * *

Later, as she stared bleakly down at that damning bit of ink on paper, Rukhsana decided that though she didn't know the how yet, she was going to find a way to murder Abraham Erskine.

* * *

**Next**

**Chapter Seven:** The Agent

* * *

**AN:** Fun fact - I recently went to an event where both Haley Atwell and Sebastian Stan were guests. They are so beautiful in real life. Also, my team lost horribly in Civil War, sad sad sad. Might have been why this chapter came out with 25% more fluff than previously anticipated.

Some recommendations for MCU OC fics: _Right Through Me_ by deletrear, _Bohemia_ by Crime Scene Fairy, _Cover You In Oil_ by Thorkone, and _Gravity_ by Not Enough Answers.

(1) I played fast and loose with the timeline between Bucky enlisting (Dec. 24th 1941 - CA:FV), going to training at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin (winter between late 1941 and early 1942 - CA:TWS), and getting his orders and departing for England (Jun. 15th, 1943 - CA:TFA).  
(2) Nowruz is an Iranian holiday celebrating the Iranian New Year in March starting usually on the 21st. It made sense for her to have her placeholder birthday during this time. (As always, if anything I've written here is incorrect or inappropriate, tell me so I can fix it.)  
(3) Bucky and Rukhsana have sign language. Steve and Rukhsana have morse code. It would be ridiculous to expect Steve to have a notepad and paper with him at the ready every time they want to communicate, esp. in public.


	7. The Agent

**Chapter Seven: The Agent**

* * *

Clearly, she'd underestimated how much she would hate the day Bucky was supposed to ship out to England. Of course, she couldn't have anticipated that it would also be the day Steve got sent off to basic training at some special camp in New Jersey. She still wasn't okay that the war effort was claiming one of her boys. Then some short, mad scientist type had walked in and snapped up the other one. Gods, what if he actually was one of those mad scientist types who wanted to experiment on him? There was no specific reason she could pinpoint for why the idea of scientists getting their hands on him made her skin crawl, just that it did.

There was nothing she could do about it, however. That is, short of tattling to Bucky so he could grab their asthmatic friend and the three of them go on the run. It was a beautiful possibility. One riddled with the authorities chasing after her boys for the rest of their lives. And their scrappy punk would inevitably screw it up because he didn't believe in running.

That was why when Rukhsana caught Bucky as he got in from dancing with Bonnie and Connie, she didn't say a word about what had happened at the recruitment office.

Though the boys were incapable of keeping secrets from her, the same was not true the other way around. And this was a secret Bucky was better off not knowing about for a while. She imagined that if she told him while he was still on U.S. soil, he may actually make a bid for bringing her fantasy scenario to life, consequences be damned. What he needed right now was to not get thrown in jail for desertion or be distracted worrying about them while he was overseas fighting. So all she said was how much she'd miss him and let him tell her the same that night.

The following morning, she walked him to the departure point with a smile (looking like she was going to cry) and waved him off (wishing she could hug him goodbye). And if she could've cried, she would have when he tipped the hat she knew now had a drawing of her in it before disappearing into the crush of other soldiers.

* * *

Since saying goodbye to Bucky, it had been all kinds of ups and downs with her other friend. Tapped out rants of _How could you-? _or _What would Bucky say? _or _You'll get hurt! _The list went on. Then, she'd subject him to hours of silence only interrupted by the occasional poke to remind him she was still there and not talking to him. And then back to tapping rants. He bore it all with a grimace but without any hint of remorse. Even she knew she'd never get an apology out of that man, he was too damned happy to have finally gotten what he wanted to ever be sorry about it.

Now that they had arrived, she noted that Camp Lehigh was at least significantly nicer than Camp McCoy. It was good they were getting here during the summer instead of in the dead of winter, too. She'd rather Steve take his chances with overheating over pneumonia any day.

An officer rounded up the rest of the recruits that had come with her friend and led them out to a training field. They were all asked to line up side by side. The men started talking, the two on either side of the blond chatting over his head as if he wasn't there. It didn't seem to bother him too much, her friend was unfortunately accustomed to getting either overlooked or singled out to be bullied. He just focused on quietly taking in the camp around them, and tapping responses back to her. She was fretting over whether they'd be set straight to exercises or testing, and he kept telling her, _it's fine, it'll be fine, I'll get through._

Yeah, and if he died of an asthma attack brought on by running laps or from all of the kicked up dust in this camp, what was she supposed to tell the last of their other friend? When he just cheekily repeated the same lines he'd given her before, she dropped her head on his shoulder and prayed for strength. And double that in patience.

Both she and Steve were pulled out of their private bubble by the sound of an clear, authoritative voice calling out, "Recruits, attention!" (1)

To his left and right, Gawky and Glasses snapped up, heads high, backs straight, and their arms at their sides. He too had followed suit. They all watched out of the right corner of their eyes as a brunette woman strode over to them, a man carrying a crate filled with clipboard and forms trailing after her.

"Gentlemen," she addressed them, slowly walking parallel down the line of men, "I'm Agent Carter. I supervise all operations of this division."

"What's with the accent, Queen Victoria?" some lunk down the line asked as the man with the crate started distributing clipboards at the right end, "Thought I was signing up for the U.S. Army."

Agent Carter had paused in front of the man as he began speaking, eyeing him up and down with a flat look. Rukhsana waited in anticipation for her response. Something big was coming, she could feel it. She slapped excitedly at Steve's arm and got an eyeroll from him, though he was definitely just as invested in this as she was.

"What's your name, soldier?" the agent inquired, cocking her head the slightest as she did so.

"Gilmore Hodge, Your Majesty," he drawled, persisting in mocking her.

"Step forward, Hodge," she ordered. When he did so, she added, "Put your right foot for forward."

The ghost slapped more insistently at her friend's arm.

"Are we dancing? Cause I got a few moves I know you'll like," Hodge told the woman with a leer and a wink.

The idiot never saw the punch coming.

"She is magnificent," Rukhsana couldn't help but breathe out as she tapped a similar sentiment onto the back of Steve's hand, feeling the stirrings of adoration deep within her.

Said woman turned to face their direction with narrowed eyes, as if searching for something. However, she was distracted by the sound of someone calling out to her from behind. Neither the girl nor Steve had missed that reaction, though. The girl caught her friend glancing in her direction and then at the agent meaningfully. As the man who had come up to them - Colonel Phillips - addressed the men, she let the blond know she was leaving his side and then drifted over to the woman.

No visible reaction to her approach that she could pick up from Agent Carter. So she couldn't see her. Floating up until she was right at the woman's side. Hesitantly, she reached out to touch her fingers to the other brunette's. Her heart dropped when her fingertips phased right through. That was always the worst test, especially when it failed.

But it wasn't the last.

With a deep inhale, she opened her mouth and said, "Hello?"

There.

Infinitesimal but there was the littlest bit of tensing in her expression and the way she was holding herself. Dark eyes flicked to the far right corner and proceeded to make a slow sweep across the camp. Rukhsana glanced at Steve, noticing him pretending very hard not to be staring at the agent even his attention was completely on her. The girl flitted to his side and tapped for a confirmation or denial about whether he had caught her reacting, too. He gave her a slight nod.

That was it. Agent Carter could hear her.

Her mind spun with the discovery.

* * *

Excited as she was to test further, she remembered how difficult approaching Steve and Bucky had been. She'd confused former the first couple times, and almost gotten him institutionalized. It had only been thanks to the latter that they had been able to cobble together a means of communication and explanation, and even then there had still been a lot of confusion. However, she did realize that communication was not actually a problem here.

Agent Carter could hear her. Grateful as she was for her boys and the interesting solutions they found to talk to one another, she'd missed being able to just say things and be heard by another person. For the first time, she might be able to speak for more than just to hear her own voice. To be listened to, and have someone respond back.

She had to be careful though. Just because she could be heard didn't mean the woman would want to hear or talk to her. The agent could be like Sara, skeptical about hearing someone with no physical body to see or touch, worried about being crazy. If the woman ever seriously worried about that, she'd do the same thing she had with her friend when he was a boy and back off. Let it just become an episode that the other brunette could sweep under the rug to be forgotten.

Still, her patience and forethought only extended to waiting until Agent Carter was alone in private to try speaking with her again. The ghost made sure to let Steve know what she was doing before she went off and tried. Now was the moment of truth. The woman was in her private room, starting to undo her tie, when she spoke up.

"Hello?"

Rukhsana jumped when the agent spun fast as lightning with a gun in hand, pointed right where she was.

"Who's there?" the woman demanded.

It was stupid, she knew the gun couldn't hurt her, but the sight of it made it feel like her heart was racing and her arms involuntarily started to lift in surrender. She caught herself and eased the limbs back down.

"My name is Rukhsana."

This time, it was the agent's turn to jump. Her eyes darted around, hearing but not seeing the intruder in her room. Every time that dark gaze passed over where she stood, it sent thrills through her.

"Where are you?"

"I'm standing right in front of you," the girl answered simply, and when the woman's expression twisted with confusion and frustration she went on, "But you can't see me. Most people can't."

"Is this a trick? An illusion? Something of Stark's?" the other brunette questioned, still not lowering the gun.

"Not any trick or illusion I know of, and definitely not anything to do with- um, do you mean Howard Stark? If so, no, nothing to do with him. This is just how I am," the girl explained.

"Why can't I see you?"

"I'm dead. A ghost." The woman didn't visibly express it so much as gave off an air of incredulity. "It's crazy, I know. If it wasn't my reality, I would think the same thing."

"Assuming you're not lying, why is a ghost speaking to me?"

"Because you can actually hear me."

"And most people can't?"

"Most people can't, except for you."

This got a furrowed brow.

"You mentioned earlier that most people can't see you. Does that mean there's someone who can?"

"Yes," Rukhsana answered, a little stunned at the quick leap in logic the woman had made, "There's a man who can see me."

"So one person who can see you. And me, one person who can hear you. Anyone else?"

"Another man who I can touch."

The agent's brow was still furrowed, but there was a spark of curiosity in her expression.

"What makes us special?"

"I don't know," the ghost admitted, "But it's hard to question it when all I feel is relieved that someone can tell I'm there."

All Agent Carter did in response to that was nod.

"I-" the girl started, "If this isn't too hard to believe, and you're okay with it, could I come talk to you more?"

"Would I even be able to stop you?" the agent asked warily, "Whether or not you really are a ghost, you're capable of sneaking into my rooms without me noticing, and I assume I wouldn't be able to physically make you leave?"

"I'd stay away if you told me to," Rukhsana swore, "I want to talk to you, but not if you don't want to."

For the first time since they'd started talking, the woman let the gun drop.

"I'd like you to give me a day to myself. I need time to think about this."

"That's fair. I can do that."

With a thoughtful nod, the other brunette spoke, "One of the men you mentioned, you're here with them, aren't you?"

The girl tensed.

"Why would you think that?" she hedged.

"Why else would you be here?" was the response she got, "Would you tell me who they are?"

"Would he be in trouble?" the girl asked fearfully.

"I'd want to speak with him. See if he could confirm your story." There was a long lapse. "So can you tell me?"

"Maybe. When we speak again in a day, I might tell you who he is." Rukhsana shut her eyes tightly. "I have to be sure this won't get him in trouble."

Something about Agent Carter's features softened fractionally.

"You care about him."

"He's my family," the ghost confirmed instantly, nodding to herself.

"In a day then," the woman said, nodding as well.

"Thank you, Agent Carter," she couldn't help but say.

"Whatever for?" the agent asked in slight puzzlement.

"For hearing me."

There was something very gentle in the way the woman stared out in her general direction.

"You're welcome, Rukhsana." And then she turned away from the ghost, putting her gun down on her makeshift table and starting to unpin her hair. "We'll talk in a day."

"Yeah," the girl said, "Goodnight."

She didn't wait for a response, choosing to return to the barracks where she'd left her friend.

* * *

_So she can hear you? _Steve asked once she found him.

_Yes, _Rukhsana replied to to her friend's question.

_Do you want to get to know her?_

_Yes. I really do._

_Does she want to get to know you, too?_

She sighed.

_I don't know._

_I could talk to her? Convince her to give you a chance? _He offered, using his other hand to hold one of her own.

_Don't worry about it, Steve._

_I have to. This the first person since us who knows about you. You deserve this._

_Deserve what? _She asked.

_Someone else knowing you. Getting to love you like Buck and I do._

_Steve. _The girl didn't know what else to say to that.

_You deserve the world Ruxie. All we ever wanted was to give you more of it._

Curling closer around him, she pressed a kiss to the side of his head.

_You've always been more than I could have asked for, _she tapped out.

His hand squeezed hers.

"Goodnight," he whispered.

_Goodnight_, she returned with one more kiss.

* * *

A day.

She could wait that long.

* * *

**Next**

**Chapter Eight:** The Choice

* * *

**AN:** Yay, more Steve and Ruxie time! Just to give everyone a heads up on the results of the pairing poll I put up, it was close between Rukhsana/Bucky, Rukhsana/Bucky/Steve, and no pairings. I may end up leaning more towards R/B or nothing (sorry R/B/S peeps, I'm not confident I could do the pairing justice, maybe another day). My last two notes are that I will no longer be italicizing dialogue taken straight from movies/comics. It's a bit tedious and disruptive; I'll be going back to take it out of past chapters. And lastly, I wrote a new thing! It's an MCU SI who takes the AI FRIDAY's place called _Girl Friday._ I'd love it if y'all could check it out.

(1) Dialogue from CA:TFA.


	8. The Choice

**Chapter Eight: The Choice**

* * *

The day almost went too quickly. Rukhsana hadn't lacked for distractions from thinking about her meeting with Agent Carter that evening. It was the first day of full training for the recruits of codename Project Rebirth. She'd been expecting it to be hard on Steve, certainly, but she'd somehow convinced herself that now here she wouldn't have to worry about him getting into trouble. Silly of her to even entertain the idea that he wouldn't get into it just as much as it would get to him. Steve wouldn't be Steve otherwise.

As hard as trying to get through the same punishing drills all of the other able bodied men struggled with, he had to deal with bullies. Something else she'd foolishly thought wouldn't follow them to Camp Lehigh. However, considering the first act Gilmore Hodge had made was to harass and belittle someone for their sex and accent, that he was a bully wasn't a stretch. If the man could spare a moment in between suffering through the physical tests, he found a way to make them harder on her friend just for the hell of it. All the other recruits either egged the bully on or turned a blind eye to it. Even the drill sergeant, Michael Duffy, didn't try too hard to keep Hodge in line when he acted out. It was clear the man had a favorite amongst the recruits.

So the ghost had her work cut out for her making sure the blond made it through each drill without collapsing to the ground from sheer exhaustion or from whatever dirty trick was pulled to put him there. At first her friend protested the help, but after the second drill he was letting her drag him to the end when his strength inevitably failed him. By the end of the day, he was dead tired. He ate dinner and fell into bed, promising with sleep slurred words that he'd wait up for her to get back from her meeting. Of course, he was out like a light before he even finished saying it, so she had to puppet his body a bit to get his shoes off and the covers pulled over him properly. Once that was sorted, she headed off.

* * *

"Agent Carter?" she called to the woman who was once again alone in her private quarters.

"You're early."

The agent looked up from the files she was perusing, her eyes moving to the place where Rukhsana was standing.

"I'm- sorry?" she apologized haltingly, "Is that okay?"

"I suppose simply agreeing to wait a day may have been a bit vague of an arrangement." Hopefully that meant she was. "There are some things, before we begin."

"Um, okay?"

Nodding, the woman continued, "I have a colleague I would like to sit in on this conversation. Would you consent to someone else joining us?"

The request was both intriguing and worrying. Considering it was pretty unlikely whoever she wanted to bring in would be able to hear, see, or touch the girl, this might be the first time she'd be revealed to someone who couldn't do any of it. Last time she'd ever wanted something like that, it had been, well. If there had been anyone she'd wanted to really know she was there, it would've been Sarah. That hadn't ever worked out, but maybe this time it would? She reminded herself that she needed to be careful. It was still uncertain what Agent Carter's intentions were concerning her, or her friend.

"That's fine," she finally responded.

At that, the woman stood and crossed the room to her door, opening it and leaning out to say, "Dr. Erskine, if you would?"

"Him?" Rukhsana practically exclaimed.

"I could say something about what people might think about a man visiting your room at night," the scruffy man commented breezily as he shuffled in.

"I've never much been one to care what others might think, if you'd recall, doctor."

"I do recall that." He lowered himself into one of the chairs in her room and cast his curious gaze over it.

Looking to where the girl was supposed to be, the agent asked, "What did you mean by 'him'?"

"I-" the ghost started, biting the inside of her lip before going on, "I don't like him."

Cocking her head, the woman questioned, "Why don't you like Dr. Erskine?"

"It's his fault. For my friend being here. For being part of this project," she forced out.

Thankfully, it seemed the agent understood, because she nodded.

"You didn't want him to come."

"No." The girl clasped her hands together tightly. "Being here means he might go to war. How could I want that?"

"Loved ones never do," Agent Carter spoke with a smile and sad eyes, "It probably isn't a comfort that everyone who is a part of the project chose it."

"Agent Carter?" voiced the only other person in the room. "You were speaking as if someone was there, but I see no one. Is this mystery person who seems to bear me ill will the one you told me about earlier?"

"She is," came the answer, "You mentioned that you had some tests for confirming whether she was telling the truth?"

"Indeed." The man shot her a somewhat mischievous smile. "If you would help me, I can start now."

What followed was a simple, but admittedly genius test. Agent Carter was asked to close her eyes as Dr. Erskine started writing something out on the notepad he had brought with him. Both of them directed the girl to look over his shoulder and read aloud what he wrote and the woman would repeat after her. When they were all in place, the man began to write and the girl began to read.

"_All our knowledge begins with the senses_-" she began.

Eyes shut, the agent repeated that and, "-_proceeds then to understanding_-"

"-_and ends with reason_," they both eventually ended, Rukhsana first and Agent Carter next. (1)

At the ghost's right, the doctor blinked down at the words then up at the woman whose eyes were still firmly shut.

"Remarkable," he breathed out.

"Yes," the woman agreed, "It seems like we'll have much to talk about."

It began with Dr. Erskine wanting to try a couple more tests of his own, just to make sure the initial result had not been a fluke. Some were just as brilliant and successful as the first test, but as they got more convoluted, Agent Carter put an end to them and asked if she and the ghost could be left alone. Once he left after extracting a promise of speaking more about it, she spoke.

"You're really there."

"Yes."

"Will you tell me now? Who he is?" At the girl's silence, the agent frowned. "You still aren't ready to trust me with him yet."

Sarah flashed across her mind again.

"I can't." The ghost's shoulder's hunched. "I need more time."

"That's reasonable," the woman said at last, and Rukhsana's head snapped to her.

"You're not angry?"

"Hardly. I know better than most that trust is earned." A measured glance was cast in her direction. "Loyalty, too. I hope he deserves yours."

Her response came without hesitation.

"He does."

"So," Agent Carter began, turning to walk to her bed and pick up the forgotten files, "Tell me more about you. What is is like to be a ghost?"

* * *

The week of training continued, and Rukhsana settled into something of a routine again. (She'd needed a new one, so far from New York and the usual comforting places. And people.) In the mornings, she coaxed Steve out of bed before any of his fellow recruits so that he had enough time to get ready and to breakfast before them. Then she'd follow after keeping an eye on him through training. For once, he wasn't trying to pick a fight the resident bully, too concerned with just surviving from one session to the next. Once training was through, she'd leave him off to settle in for the night either to read or to pass out.

Then she'd steal away to Agent Carter's private quarters for the rest of the evenings.

While the woman respected her decision not to tell her Steve's identity as the girl's mystery friend, it in no way kept her from probing for clues on that front in the meantime. She was, after all, an agent and information gathering was one of her numerous skills. Once the ghost had figured that out, she'd had to be a lot more cautious with what she shared. A throwaway comment about the Brooklyn Bridge had almost led to giving everything away. It was only luck that a large majority of the Rebirth recruits were from New York with one or two from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. She made sure to talk about other parts of New York besides Brooklyn and drop tidbits of information gleaned from eavesdropping on the other recruits in order to misdirect. And not almost explode with the need to talk when the man and the agent were in the same place at the same time, like when Steve had earned himself a ride back to the camp with the woman that one time.

(She'd wanted to cheer for him. And laugh at Sergeant Duffy's face. The latter was what she stuck with.)

Talking about the nature of her existence was a lot safer of a topic. Agent Carter, who after the first couple days told her to call her Peggy instead, was a very inquisitive person. Her mission to find out who Rukhsana's friend was only the first clue. She wanted to know everything about what made the ghost the way she was. In a way, it reminded her so much of what it was like when she'd really met two curious and excitable little boys practically a decade ago. The girl only had about the same information as she had then, the only difference being that the woman was now third in line of people she'd encountered who were able to tell she was there. And the very first to ever hear her voice.

It was interesting to have someone to theorize with at rapid fire pace on why exactly she and the two that had come before her were able to perceive the ghost. And why that perception was tied strictly to three different senses for three different people. Would they be only ones to ever be able to? Almost three decades and the girl had only ever found three. It was hard to say for sure.

Dr. Erskine was kept in the loop on everything concerning Rukhsana, much to said girl's displeasure. Peggy had insisted, especially considering the fact she was keeping this entire thing a secret from Colonel Phillips and the rest of the SSR, at least until the conclusion of Project Rebirth. Both she and the doctor agreed whatever the ghost was, she didn't seem like a threat. They would quietly investigate her on their own and read the colonel into it when they were sure springing the existence of ghosts on him wouldn't interfere with the project. And of course, they'd had that entire conversation right in front of her without really bothering to get her input on the matter. That had been a little irritating and a lot concerning, but she stayed silent.

By the end of Project Rebirth, if she'd successfully kept Steve's identity under wraps and there were no major hitches in the project itself, she and the man could just disappear into the mass of other soldiers. Or even better - though it would break her friend's heart - if he got dismissed from the army entirely after the project, they could just go home, pretend it never happened, and wait for Bucky to come back. She may risk losing a potential friend if she continued to keep her away. But Steve had been first. Steve would always be first. That was something the woman should already know about her, and if she didn't, she hadn't been paying enough attention.

However, she hadn't anticipated was that her hand would be forced.

.

It started with a grenade.

Rukhsana had been watching Peggy work the recruits, her grimace growing as Steve's jumping jacks just got floppier and floppier. She'd barely acknowledged Colonel Phillips and Dr. Erskine approaching. That is, until the colonel's authoritative voice cut across the sounds of the camp, to call out one word:

"Grenade!"

Her fingers just grazed her friend's wrist as she went to clamp her hand down on it and pull him to safety. She could have cried when she realized in the next second that instead of diving away like every other sensible person, he dove towards the explosive.

"Steve, no!" she couldn't help but shout as she went after him, intent on dragging him off the gods forsaken thing.

He fought her like he'd never fought her before when she tried to muscle him away from something. Just kept curling his body tighter around it and yelling for everyone to get away. She started desperately to beg and pull harder at him.

_If he died- If he died-_ _If he died-_

What would she do with herself? How could she ever face Bucky again? Would Sarah ever forgive her?

And then Peggy was there, a hand on Steve's shoulder as she helped him to sit up, whispering to them, "It was a dummy grenade."

The fight left them both.

"Is this a test?" the man asked, staring at the colonel and doctor.

Said colonel gave everyone an gruff, exasperated look then walked off. That left the doctor with a grin on his face as his gaze met the blond's.

"Yes," the older man answered him cheerfully, before turning to address all of them men, "Gentlemen, may I have your attention please? I have an announcement."

* * *

The girl spent hours camped out in Peggy's room, all of it spent seething.

When the woman arrived, she called out from the door, "Rukhsana?"

"I'm here," she said back, staring at the mirror on the desktop that reflected back an empty room.

"Have you been here the entire time?"

"I didn't have anywhere better to be," the girl muttered.

"He asked after you," the agent eventually said, that carefully controlled note of curiosity in her voice, "When he realized you weren't there."

Of course. She'd figured it out. It must've been so easy after that performance earlier.

"Mmhmm," was the only response she could make.

"You seem upset."

"I am."

"I can guess why." At the ghost's silence, she went on. "You didn't like him throwing himself over that grenade. It was brave of him, though."

"It was stupid."

"Those can be interchangeable," the woman allowed, "Dr. Erskine's decision today also upset you."

And she was right again. Bad enough Steve had been so willing to throw his life away earlier. Even if that had been fake, it was real enough that he'd been willing to die and make her watch it happen. But now it was worse, because of all of the recruits available, the doctor had chosen her friend to be the subject for the procedure.

"It wasn't supposed to be him." She looked at Peggy, whose expression was both hard and sympathetic. "It was never supposed to be him."

"Or maybe it was meant to be Rukhsana," the agent said gently, "Private Rogers was the only one personally recruited into the program by Dr. Erskine. That put him close to the top of the stack of candidates right from the start."

"So it's his fault."

"If that's how you see it, then yes, it's Dr. Erskine's fault. But that was because he saw something in Private Rogers. I have faith in Dr. Erskine, and his decision."

"And I don't. There are margins of error. How high is the possibility of failure for this project?" The girl's eyes dropped to the floor when the woman didn't answer her. "Anything higher than nothing is too high for me. Not for something like this."

* * *

She didn't go back to Steve that night. Or the day after.

Peggy had made sure to tell her that the man had asked after her. The girl had nothing to offer in response to that. She didn't know how she was supposed to feel about any of it right at the moment. Crying was something she actually missed, she was sure she could have passed the time bawling over everything. Even just the sensation of it, moisture pooling and trickling down her cheeks, her eyes red and irritated with it. That could have offered some distraction from the overwhelming and incomprehensible emotions consuming her.

It wasn't until the dawn of second morning that the woman finally snapped her out of it. The ghost had been sitting just outside the door of her room, watching solemnly as the sun began to cast glowing gold across the lightening sky. When the agent stepped out, she paused there in the doorway and began to speak.

"You can stay here if you want, if you don't think you'll be able to handle watching him do this. But I think you'll never forgive yourself if you let him do this without you, especially if the worst happens like you think it will."

As usual, she was right. Her new acquaintance made a habit of it. It was odd to be understood so completely after all this time with the boys constantly fumbling and misunderstanding her. Maybe it was because she could hear her. Maybe it was just Peggy herself. At the woman's expectant gaze, Rukhsana pushed herself up so she was standing at her side.

"I'm coming."

The ride to the New York testing center from Camp Lehigh was a quiet one. Steve on the right side, his eyes sliding intently over the interior of the car and hands tugging restlessly at the cuffs of his sleeves. He didn't realize it yet, that the ghost was there, too. Sitting in the space between the two others occupants of the car but making no physical contact with the only one who could feel it. Just looking at him made an ugly feeling rise up in her. She had to turn her head away.

All she could bear to do was hook a single finger at the crook where his thumb met the rest of his left hand. She could hear his soft exhalation of her name. He took her hand fully between his two shaking ones and grasped it tightly, and she wondered if her own trembled, too. Glancing to her left, she saw the woman's vibrant red lips pull into a satisfied smile. The girl put her face in her other hand.

This was going to be awful.

* * *

She couldn't have imagined then what that day would have in store for her.

For Steve.

For history.

* * *

**Next**

**Chapter Nine:** The Rebirth

* * *

**AN:** Wow, was this chapter just kind of hard to write. But it's done! On to Project Rebirth. And, guess who? Also, for those of you disappointed that there will be no R/B/S, I have a gift to offer in consolation: an R/B/S soulmate AU oneshot of this story. It's called _When Our Stars Fall Here_, and it's super gooey, chock full of feels, and vastly AU from _Perception_. I hope those of you who are interested can enjoy. If poly, soulmates, or ficAU are not your cup of tea, no need to read, I understand.

(1) Quote from German philosopher Immanuel Kant


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